


Until Death

by bizzylizzy



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Red Rising Fusion, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M, Murder and Mayhem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23462806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bizzylizzy/pseuds/bizzylizzy
Summary: ::Sci-fi AU, Naruto/Red Rising::Itachi's look of surprised wonder lived immortal in Shisui's heart, and would until the day Itachi tore that heart from his chest.
Relationships: Uchiha Itachi/Uchiha Shisui
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Until Death

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to another episode of I'm managing my stress by cleaning up my WIP folder, whether these things deserve to be published or not! 
> 
> I don't come close to doing the setting and ideas in Pierce Brown's Red Rising series any kind of justice. Even if you aren't a bif fan of Science Fiction, I HIGHLY recommend that series. It is very dark, but so good.
> 
> This was written for the 2019 Shiita week but I never finished it.

Kaguya had the power to destroy worlds.

There were the logistics of travel across planetary space to consider, but she could send enough nuclear power to a planet or moon to wipe all life from its surface. She had done so before (although that had been a small planet). There was always the unspoken undercurrent that she would one day do so again.

If she had to.

Everyone lived for the Society. No matter your moon or planet or clan, everyone lived to uphold the Society. Those blessed with superior genetics and born from prime stock were labeled Golds. They were taller, stronger, and overall physically superior beings to the "lower colors." Every color had a place in society, and society worked because everyone stayed in their place.

Gold reigned supreme.

And Kaguya, the purest of gold, reigned over them all from her court on Luna.

"It used to be," She would say. "In days of old, Gold were the superior beings of the world, but they served others. They were shamed for their strength and ability to kill. They were called _shinobi_ and _assasins_. Until, one day, they rose up and took what was rightfully theirs from the weaker humans who considered themselves better simply because they could not stomach killing. And so we have reigned, as is our right, and brought humanity to its pinnacle."

From the shadows had come Gold. From those early superior roots, Gold had been bred and selected and then, as science advanced, genetically enhanced. DNA was tweaked, nerves and muscle were added to give more speed, more strength, and more durability. They surpassed what nature could have produced. 

They became the ultimate warriors.

As the clans grew larger, and times became more prosperous, they became less pure. Fewer wars were fought among the ranks, and each conquest pushed war further from the core of society. Weakness did not always die. Ideological failings were not always purged as a matter of course.

Weakness began to grow like a soft boil ready to burst and contaminate all others. It was only a matter of time before it spread.  
~  
In an age of genetic manipulation, called Carving, some secrets were guarded jealously. Each clan was allowed, by Kaguya, to keep one secret genetic enhancement only practiced on their own family. She said not even she knew how those clan secrets were created, but with Kaguya, one couldn't be too certain.

The Uchiha Clan had their own test of merit. As a clan, they were known for having red eyes. No Uchiha was born this way. Some Uchiha never gained the red eyes, but they never left the moon the clan compound was located on. They were not allowed to participate in clan politics and were always viewed as lesser. Only the finest would be allowed to represent the Uchiha. Only the best of those earned the right to the Sharingan.

The _Sharingan_ was not natural or a birthright. A carver cultivated the cells and engineered eyes sharper and faster than any in existence, other except perhaps the Hyuuga. They were made of all biological components. All naturally grown in a Carver's lab to fit each Uchiha who had earned them. Clan lore said one pair was grown for every Uchiha born, but Shisui did not think that could be practical. Certain Uchiha were never expected to gain their Sharingan, and surely a lab could grow eyes quickly for any Uchiha who turned out to be more promising than originally estimated. It would not take years to grow a pair of eyes, would it? Even eyes as complex as the Sharingan could be completed in months.

Shisui and Itachi could have had eyes growing since they were born, because their right to the Sharingan had never been questioned. But even they had to "earn" it. No one really spoke about what they had done before they received the Sharingan, so Shisui could never quite determine why it happened when it happened.

But.

It happened in the night. 

Itachi's eyes cried blood for two weeks after.

Everyone called that a good omen.

A sign of strength finally returned to the clan.

It had been a sign. It had been an omen.

But not one any had looked for.  
~  
"Wasn't he your lover?"

Of course, it was the Hyuuga. Shisui turned his gaze casually to the kid everyone was pissing themselves over. Like he was some gory damn war hero. He was barely twenty, those eerie white eyes counter to Shisui's blood red ones. The whole party was all suiting up for a raid on a little asteroid that was supposed to play host to one of the worst and most troublesome group of Missing. The Akastuki. And now, while they were waiting to launch, this little shit eater wanted to ask questions?

"You're the one who almost killed your first cousin, right?" Shisui reached for his helmet. Always best to protect your brains with bloodthirsty children around.

Neji didn't respond. He looked at Shisui, his gaze screaming he had no respect for the older Gold. Neji was the new up and coming star of the solar system. He was the Sovereign's new pet, and Uchiha were going out of vogue. Shisui's fall would only take so long, and then Neji would have his place among the Sovereign's Olympic knights. Likely the Sovereign had placed Neji here to remind Shisui he was working on borrowed time, and she could replace him at any moment with a newer model.

Shisui wished them both the joy of it.

"Let me show you how to properly trim your family's chaff," Shisui suggested with a sneer, pulling his helmet down over his face and sealing his face off from the rest of the group. They were all in light armor, running the line between stealth and protection. They would need some armor to survive, but pulse shields would be their greatest defense. "This is the Joy Knight. The Merry Cohort report!"

Shisui listened to the chorus from his bloodthirsty Gold children. They were here for glory. They were here to earn their scars after testing themselves against the best of the other Gold children in the Institute and finding their taste for blood. Shisui didn't tell them they were going to be outmatched. They wouldn't believe him. They still quoted their graduation statistics from the Institute as if that meant anything.

They didn't understand that Uchiha Itachi had not won his year at the Institute.

He had _broken_ the system.

And he would break them just as easily.  
~  
Growing up in the family compound, Shisui remembered Itachi first as an infant, important as the next head of the Clan so everyone in the family had come to peer at the blanket swaddled rumple including Shisui, and second as a single burning brightness in his life.

Shisui was recovering from an assassination attempt that had killed his, to that point, best friend. For the majority of the clan, she had been the less promising child from a less "pure" line of the family. For them, losing her but having Shisui survive had been a victory. Shisui had proven himself to be a good fighter, capable of killing, and, perhaps more importantly, capable of enduring and working through intense physical pain. Shisui had looked the adults who had raised him in the eye and known, for the first time, they were monsters.

Shisui's broken bones and ruptured tendons meant weeks in the infirmary, though he had his own room and his tutors gave him special visits to continue his lessons. He got gifts from people he hardly knew, and he almost wished he could enjoy himself. At night he dreamed of seeing his friend gutted, and trying to carry her dripping body back to the compound for help. Even when Shisui had known she was dead, he had carried her.

After two weeks, Shisui woke up to a small voice reading to him. Shisui blinked himself awake through the pain medication and stared at the odd creature sitting on his bed, reading Matsuo Basho's poetry to him in a dead language. They all spoke the common Society tongue here, but the child spoke fluent Japanese. Shisui's great grandfather had taught him, but most people chose Latin as their second language and didn't bother with a third.

Shisui knew the child, but he hadn't seen Itachi in years. Fugaku had insisted on taking Itachi with him when he had flown his Fleet to engage in the latest rebellion on the outer rims of the solar system. The Uchiha were known as great warriors and eager pacifiers of the rebellions of the less civilized spaces. Even those who hated their Clan would guard their tongues and admit if an enemy needed to be put down, the Uchiha were the clan to send.

Taking a child as young as Itachi into space combat had been completely unheard of. Children of large clans were often sheltered and trained ruthlessly by their family until they were entered into one of the Institutes. Once there they would show off their skills and win their clan renown, but until that point most Gold children were sheltered at home. The Uchiha did not follow that model as cloesly as other clans, but Itachi, as next head of the clan, should have been kept at home. None of the adult family could decide if Fugaku's decision were madness or genius. Mikoto thought it amounted to kidnapping, but she could never quite get enough support to have her husband arrested.

Itachi's eyes were still black. Black eyes, black hair, white face and the deep russet robes of their family. Itachi looked up as Shisui woke, likely hearing a change in breathing and watched Shisui. He had eyes that did not belong in such a small face. He had eyes that did not belong to such a young child.

"You were having a nightmare. I thought if I read to you, you would know you weren't alone." With that, Itachi slid off the bed and carried his book away with him. He walked more softly than a cat, more purposefully than an arch governer.

"Wait," Shisui croaked. Itachi stopped but didn't turn around.

"It's boring being in bed all day."

Itachi turned around. "Yes." A statement of fact that would have been wistful from anyone else.

"If you aren't busy." Shisui cleared his throat. "Would you stay?"

"I am supposed to be recuperating," Itachi said.

"From what?"

Itachi stared at Shisui. "I was on the _Mangekyou_ when the Kiriga forces blew it up."

Shisui forced himself to sit up higher. He patted a spot on the bed. "No one has been telling me anything, and that sounds like a story worth sharing." For a moment, the grave boy just stared at Shisui, and then he came back and climbed back up onto the bed to tell Shisui an incredibly detailed account of how the head of the Clan had lost the Clan's flagship to Kiriga rebels. Shisui thought with that, Mikoto just might get her husband arrested after all.

It turned out, Itachi was no more than bruised, but putting him in the infirmary seemed to be Mikoto's way of keeping Fugaku from leaving with Itachi on intergalactic missions without her full approval. Mikoto had her own house guards watching the infirmary to keep Fugaku out and Itachi in. It helped all the medics were fully against Itachi returning to space before his majority. They thought it was bad for his bones and would cause him to be too delicate of frame when he matured.

"You must be even more bored than I am."

"I have books," Itachi said wistfully.

"Well I have a Shoji board and a Go board," Shisui smiled. "We'll see if we can make things less boring between us."  
~  
Shisui had made conditions with Kaguya.

It had been his only consolation in all the grief. The children were alive, and he could ask his Sovereign for one thing.

"I want to be lead on any team that goes after Itachi."

Kaguya had regarded him with her nothing eyes and her ageless face. No one really knew how old she was. No one ever asked. No one wanted to guess and what all had to be done to keep the Sovereign ruling. She amassed power, hoarding it around her and making every single Gold compete for her recognition and the honor of serving her. She was a destroyer of worlds and a maker of galaxies.

And she had graciously conceded to Shisui's request.

This put Shisui ever farther from court and all his remaining baby family members, and ever closer to the disgraced Missing at the very edges of Society. It brought him forever into battles with unscrupulous men and women who were driven by odd creeds and cults and some just by the desire for blood and death. These were the people who could not abide by Society's rules. These were the kind of people who were not even in their allowed into Society's criminal underbellies because they could not even follow those rules. These were the extremes of the extremists. Out here, Shisui had run across every kind of human being in his search for the one sly figure who constantly eluded him, and almost all of them had tried to kill him.

"Ghost Cloaks on, total silence Gigglers," Shisui called over his comm line. He didn't think they could get in unseen and the cloaks would be useless once they hit combat. Itachi had always been top-notch at tech. He also knew how people thought. Shisui thought they were only finding Itachi here because he wanted to be found.

And Shisui was bringing his little team of cutthroats in on the prayer that Itachi was not planning to slaughter them all.

But he could have the Hyuuga.

Neji might be the best with the razor since Shisui and Itachi had ruled the dueling stage, but he was arrogant. Rightly so, but Shisui had a twitch between his shoulder blades whenever the Hyuuga was around. Kaguya could be ready to replace Shisui at any moment. She could justify it with whatever lie she wanted because of Itachi. Because of his family. Because of his weakness for long hair and gentle smiles that had led them all out here to this slaughter.

"We're bearding the dragon in his den. Stay sharp, stay smart, and remember," Shisui turned back to look at the flock behind him. "The Raven is mine."  
~  
"What house do you think you'll be in?" Itachi asked. Shisui would be leaving in the morning for the Institute, and, of course, the best way to spend the night was lying head to feet with Itachi and discussing philosophy. Shisui had no idea what he would have in the Institute. No one would tell him, but everyone in the clan just smiled and told him he would do well.

Shisui wondered if they would take the Sharingan back if he didn't.

"Do you think I'll be disowned if I'm not in Mars? I think I would do well in Apollo," Shisui nodded. He didn't have to look to see Itachi's arched eyebrow. "Really, Jupiter seems likely. That is usually where my branch ends up, and my grandfather won his year there. I am supposed to be Kagami remade."

"I think you'll be in House Minerva," Itachi decided.

"So _you_ will disown me if I am something else?" Shisui twisted his head to look at Itachi's face. Itachi kept staring at the ceiling until Shisui nudged him with a foot. Itachi glanced and smiled, showing a flash of what he would grow into.

"No, it will just mean I do not know you as well as I think I do," Itachi elbowed Shisui back.

"That would be a tragedy worse than being disowned, truly," Shisui sat up. "Why Minerva?"

"You're fishing for compliments. You know exactly why I would pick Minerva," Itachi closed his eyes.

"And you'll be in Pluto," Shisui scoffed. Itachi's eyes opened, and he raised one eyebrow. Shisui, knowing he had to give a real prediction or have this be his only accepted one, added: "But of course, you'll go to Mars, because that is the Clan House and you have to uphold the Clan's name."

"I believe that answer would be called," Itachi drew out the words. "A cop-out."

Itachi was right: Shisui went to Minerva. He won his year.

Shisui was also right: Itachi went to Pluto.

And maybe that was where every trouble began.  
~  
Shisui's group descended from their stealth ship, floating down on gravboots. They were not as stealthy as they could be. Their armor would give them an electric field that could be detected. The all had pulse weapons on fists and at hips and razors as every noble Gold must carry a razor into battle. They were all ready for murder because these jackals had been born ready to slaughter. These were not the soft Golds some clans allowed to live these days. These were the truly hardened. The ones from clans that still exposed infants who were weak or defective.

The warehouse had fifteen levels. As they touched down to the roof, the Gigglers ran to place jammers on the edge of the roof to prevent any information or sound from going in or out. Half the group would start at the roof and secure down, the other half would start from the bottom. Shisui gave the signal. His ears popped. The jam fields were up. No sound in. No sound out. They were along with the monsters.

Those going in at the bottom were already jumping to float silently down, pulse fists charging to glow and whine and pointed down to blast anyone who came out of the building before they were even aware of what was going on. If they were lucky, it wouldn't be just Itachi here.

"Touch down," Neji said, indicating his group was in position.

"Joyful Chorus, begin to sing," Shisui commanded, and he heard the first screams from below.  
~  
It happened after Shisui got back from the Institute. Itachi was allowed to go with Shisui down to Earth, visiting Japan and the old family holdings. They were both going to get razor training, but Shisui would stay on after Itachi left to complete his own year at the Institute. Mikoto and Fugaku were fighting about where Itachi should be and what he should be doing, so the clan had decided to send him to earth out of both of their immediate reaches lest one of them kidnap Itachi and cause an incident.

Their sensei was an old fashioned, gnarled man who refused technology and relied on Itachi and Shisui to do all of the cooking and cleaning of the place. The family holdings on earth were massive and filled with the latest tech. Every luxury was supplied when Itachi and Shisui arrived for dinner. Servants were everywhere. Shisui had expected the dojo to be the same, but as soon as they entered Madara's walled dojo, all was silent. No electric buzz, and not even the sound of other people. 

After the Institute that basically tossed them out in medieval society to play a _very_ deadly game of capture the flag with primitive weapons, Shisui had no trouble adapting to not having servants or technology. He knew how to clean and how to cook basic meals. He didn't complain about the manual labor since he wasn't in danger of being stabbed for spoiled meat. Itachi enjoyed it. Their cheerful competence didn't gain them any respect from Madara, and the old man worked them hard and regularly gave them injuries that required them to go offsite and get medical attention. They were constantly either training, cleaning, cooking, or sleeping. Madara would wake them in the middle of the night with surprise attacks to test their reflexes. They were constantly exhausted and pushed to their physical limits by the deranged, demanding old man.

But those were the most blissful weeks of Shisui's life.

Chores, training, sparring, sleeping--all were done beside Itachi, and Madara didn't care how much they talked while they worked. Coming on the tail end of being separated for months with no contact, they had thousands of little everyday incidents to relay to each other. Shisui relayed all he could about his time at the Institute. When they ran out of things to say, or were too tired for talk, Itachi would sometimes recite poetry or treatises on war.

And it seemed, in those days, fairly inevitable that Shisui should, as he felt led, stoop to kiss the curve of Itachi's sharp cheek. 

Itachi's look of surprised wonder lived immortal in Shisui's heart, and would until the day Itachi tore that heart from his chest.  
~  
Shisui didn't have to wonder why his Gigglers were screaming. He didn't have to hear the garbled warnings on the radio. He knew.

Shisui remembered meeting Kisame when Itachi had first brought him to Luna. The man wasn't a Gold, but a lower rank labeled "Obsidian." His kind had been, for the same length of time as Gold's, bred and modified to be killers. They were raised to see Golds as gods and to submit to Gold's commands. They had limited access to technology to keep them from revolting, but that didn't make them less effective killers. That meant you could take everything from them and they would be able to rip something apart with their bare hands.

Kisame had a reputation. No one had known exactly where he came from, but Itachi had picked him up on one of his many successful naval battles. Imperator Uchiha had been above reproach, and everyone had accepted the Stained bodyguard as an odd quirk. No one had ever thought Kisame might be linked to anything sinister. No one expected an Obsidian to be organized or clever.

That was why there were so many screams echoing in Shisui's helmet. He ran to the edge of the building and jumped. He free-fell until the last moment and blasted his gravboots to slow him enough to not break his knees. Shisui charged in, pulse fist on his arm already charged and fired as soon as he saw Kisame.

It missed Kisame as the man threw one of the Joyful Chorus into the line of fire. Shisui didn't know who it was under the armor, but they lost an arm. Shisui charged in. Kisame didn't use pulse weapons. He didn't specialize in anything long-range, which should have made him easy to take-out. He had a massive sword meant for destruction. Bludgeoning. Destroying.

Shisui had seen people wet themselves at the sight of that sword.

Shisui bent under the first blow and drew his razor. The weapon slithered out, a slim and flexible length of the hardest and sharpest metal Society could create. Even with the weapon rigid, Shisui could never use it to stop the weapon Kisame used, but Shisui could get around it. Kisame swung again. Shisui wanted to dodge but a Giggler was in the way. If Shisui dodged he would be cut in two. Instead, Shisui threw up his arm and activated his pulse shield. The shield of energy flashed and sparked as Kisame's sword hit it. For a moment Shisui thought he might keep his footing, but the power behind the blow knocked him off his feet and into the wall. Bones in his arm were certainly fractured, and Shisui felt his armor injecting him with pain killers to keep him fighting.

"Raven!" Someone was screaming. "Pull back, pull back, backup needed on the ninth floor--!" Shisui didn't hesitate. He didn't consider the Gigglers fighting and dying against Kisame. He blasted his way through the closest door to the stairs and rocketed up the stairwell as fast as he could go.

Maybe the medics could put you back together after whatever Kisame did, but Itachi left no survivors.  
~  
Itachi had just gotten back from the Institute, and he lay in Shisui's rumpled bed. What had happened had not been surprising, but it had been quicker than expected. Shisui still felt the burn of it in his body, the desire creeping back up again despite having been quenched so recently.

"I don't want to talk about it," Itachi said, not looking at Shisui.

"I wasn't going to ask you too," Shisui reached over and pushed Itachi's hair back from his face. Itachi had grown into himself while at the Institute, the harsh environment melting away every childish trace on his face and body. This felt far more significant than the kiss at the dojo.

"You're going to Luna?" Itachi rolled onto his back to look at Shisui.

Shisui shrugged. "It seems like a waste not try the dueling circuit after all my training."

"A waste not to kill over confident coppers?" Itachi asked with more disdain than he had ever directed towards Shisui.

"Not everyone dies after losing a duel," Shisui pointed out. "And they come into the ring knowing what they risk." Shisui paused. "Are you worried about me?"

Itachi smiled then, and everything in Shisui both shriveled and expanded at once. "No. I know you. I have seen you fight. No one out there can touch you--except me."

Shisui had a burning cut along his ribs from their sparring earlier, but he caught the double meaning as Itachi reached up to pull Shisui down into him.  
~  
Shisui, heedless of whatever lay beyond the door, shot his pulse fist through the door when he reached the ninth floor. Bodies were on the floor. Bits and pieces of robotic, barely human configurations littered the floor as well.

As Shisui stepped out into the carnage, someone clapped. A slow, mocking clap.

Itachi stood untouched at one end of the room. He was as beautiful as always, his dark hair barely held back from his face. He wore an all black suit of close-fitting ghost armor. It accentuated how thin he'd become. Half a mack covered his lower face. Itachi brought his black clad hands together for one last clap.

"Well done." The voice was distorted through the mask over Itachi's face. He did not look human. He barely looked alive. Shisui thought of Kaguya's terrifying form, her gaunt nature.

"You have led more lambs to the slaughter," Itachi spread his arms in a clear mockery of one of Kaguya's favorite calls to devotion.

"I'm taking you down to the cold hell of space with me today, Itachi," Shisui promised. Red eyes watched Shisui's slow advance through the room. He could already tell by the voice what he was facing. Shisui snapped out his razor. It slithered on the ground as Shisui twitched it back and forth.

Itachi moved faster than anyone else Shisui had ever fought. Worse, Itachi knew every single trick of Shisui's. His Sharingan had stored years of footage of Shisui's fights, analyzing and breaking it down to provide the most accurate predictions possible. Putting that side by side with Itachi's razor-sharp, quicksilver mind meant this would always be the toughest fight of Shisui's life.

Shisui feinted left. Itachi snapped his black razor up, aiming to cut Shisui open from groin to neck. Shisui swayed back, swinging his blade up. Itachi caught the blow, and engaged his gravboots to blast himself backward as Shisui tried to blast Itachi with his pulse fist. That would never be quick enough to hit Itachi, but it could distract him. 

Shisui dashed in, dodging body parts of robot pieces as he closed on Itachi. Itachi waited. Cool and calm and ready. 

The rage crept over Shisui then. The absolute blinding rage as he imagined Itachi sitting in bed in the mornings, light filtering through the windows to turn his raven dark hair red. 

And everything that had happened after, filled Shisui with a boiling red.


End file.
